on 18Apr2023April 18, 2023

BAT JUNGLE HORROR: ‘The Pool of the Stone God’ by Abraham Merrit

‘We started back through the forest. We walked some distance and then night fell. We lost the brook. After a half hour’s wandering we heard it again. We started for it. The trees began to thin out and we thought we were approaching the beach. Then Waters clutched my arm. I stopped. Directly in front of us was the open space with the stone god leering under the moon and the green water shining at his feet!’ —Abraham Merrit (The Pool of the Stone God)

on 14Apr2023April 14, 2023

SEA HORROR: ‘The Symbol’ by Robert E. Howard

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

But deep in the seaweed-haunted halls in the green unlighted deep,

Inhuman kings await the day that shall break their chains of sleep.

And far in a grim untrodden land on a jungle-girded hill,

A pillar stands like a sign of Fate, in subtle warning still.

—Robert E. Howard (The Symbol)

on 14Apr202314Apr2023

DEMONIC NEURAL LINK HORROR: ‘Enoch” by Robert Bloch

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

Have you ever felt the tread of little feet walking across the top of your skull? Footsteps on your skull, back and forth, back and forth? —Robert Bloch (Enoch)

on 14Apr2023May 4, 2023

SWAMP HORROR: ‘Island of the Giant Snail’ by Jeffrey LeBlanc

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

‘Deaf, as he would be for the rest of his days, Stewart Baker slowly glanced back. Sweat poured from his brow and mixed with the blood caked on his shirt. He half expected the colossus of the snails to roar down the trenasse in pursuit, crushing everything in its wake. He almost welcomed the death by such a terrifying beast.’
—Jeffrey LeBlanc (Island of the Giant Snail)

on 02Nov202202Nov2022

Halloween Celebration–The Most Haunted Scottish Poem “Tam O’ Shanter”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“Ah! little ken’d thy reverend grannie,

That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,

Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),

Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!”

— Robert Burns (Tam O’ Shanter)

on 01Nov2022November 1, 2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 30: Lord Byron & Adelaide Crapsey

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“Start not—nor deem my spirit fled:

In me behold the only skull

From which, unlike a living head,

Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaff’d, like thee:

I died: let earth my bones resign;

Fill up—thou canst not injure me;

The worm hath fouler lips than thine.”–Lord Byron (Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull)

on 01Nov202201Nov2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 29: “Haunted Houses” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“All houses wherein men have lived and died

Are haunted houses. Through the open doors

The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,

With feet that make no sound upon the floors.”

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Haunted Houses)

on 01Nov202201Nov2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 28: “Stragella”, “Ice in the Veins”, & “Ligeia”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

And human heads, many of them, scattered about like an assembly of mocking, dead-alive faces, leering at him, watching him with hellish anticipation. The place was a morgue—a charnel house!”–Hugh B. Cave (Stragella)

on 01Nov2022November 1, 2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 27: “Restless Waters” & “Unda; or, The Bride of the Sea”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“Black loom the crags of the uplands behind me;

Dark are the sands of the far-stretching shore.

Dim are the pathways and rocks that remind me

Sadly of years in the lost nevermore.

Soft laps the ocean on wave-polish’d boulder;

Sweet is the sound and familiar to me.

Here, with her head gently bent to my shoulder,

Walk’d I with Unda, the Bride of the Sea.”— H.P. Lovecraft (Unda, or The Bride of the Sea)

on 01Nov202201Nov2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 26: “The Graveyard Rats”, “The Black Kiss”, & “It Walks By Night”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

Old Masson, the caretaker of one of Salem’s oldest and most neglected cemeteries, had a feud with the rats.–Henry Kuttner (The Graveyard Rats)

on 01Nov202201Nov2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 25: Thomas Swafford’s “A Night in the Pumpkin Patch”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“They were rotted human eyes—the stare of a corpse, looking back at him.”

— Thomas Swafford (The Pumpkin Patch)

on 01Nov202201Nov2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 24: Lovecraft Unleashed

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.”— H.P. Lovecraft (The Survivor)

on 01Nov202201Nov2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 23: “Spirits of the Dead” & “Stonehenge”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“Be silent in that solitude,

Which is not loneliness—for then

The spirits of the dead who stood

In life before thee are again

In death around thee—and their will

Shall overshadow thee: be still.”— Edgar Allan Poe (Spirits of the Dead)

on 31Oct202231Oct2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 22: “The Mischief of Forest Creatures”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“I don’t think you were wise to do that,” he said reflectively. “I’ve heard it said that the Wood Gods are rather horrible to those who molest them.”

“Horrible perhaps to those that believe in them, but you see I don’t,” retorted Sylvia.

— Saki (The Music on the Hill)

on 31Oct202231Oct2022

Best Halloween Horror–Episode 21: “Cry of the Werewolf” & “The Master of Rampling Gate”

by Jeffrey LeBlanc

“Rip and claw flesh and hair,
Gnaw the bones, lap the blood without care,
Moonlight in the cold dark gloom,
Illuminates the black stones of tombs,
Down in the hollow, night winds howl,
Stalk bestial in darkness with the owl,—Jeffrey LeBlanc (Cry of the Werewolf)